He Mounted A Shelbourne "Stripper" On A Deere Header

He Mounted A Shelbourne "Stripper" On A Deere Header COMBINES Headers 22-3-11 "I wanted a bigger stripper header but I didn't want to spend the nearly $27,000 a commercially-built stripper would cost," says Norman Madden, Newport, Ark. He put together his own "stripper" header for just $3,000 by mounting a Shelbourne Reynolds stripper rotor on a Deere grain header. Stripper headers pull grain heads off standing stalks of grain, leaving the stalks standing and feeding only grain and chaff through the combine. They were developed in En-gland and are now being marketed in North America by Massey Ferguson. The idea has caught on in certain areas of the country, particularly the Northwest, where wheat yields tend to be the heaviest, and down South. Madden bought the shell of a 25-ft. Deere 925 grain header at a salvage yard, equipped with a pipe reel and table auger but no cutterbar. He also bought a burned, 20-ft. wide Shelbourne Reynolds stripper header. The stripping rotor in the header consisted of two 10-ft. long sections supported by a center bearing. He cut a 5-ft. length out of another stripper rotor and bolted it in between the two 10-ft. rotor sections, and then mounted the rotor on the header. He mounted the Shelbourne domed housing on the Deere header over the rotor, just like on the original stripper header. He had to lengthen the 20-ft. housing out to 25 ft. The rotor mounts just ahead of the Deere header's 10-in. dia. reel pipe, which delivers stripped material into the Deere header's table auger. The rotor is belt-driven off the combine's feeder house drive. The reel pipe is driven by the hydraulic motor that originally drove the Deere header's reel. The table auger is chain-driven off the original right feeder housing drive on the Deere combine. "I used it last year to harvest 600 acres of rice and it was almost trouble-free," says Madden. "I had been using a 20-ft. Shelbourne Reynolds stripper but wanted more capacity. However, the company's biggest rice model is only 22 ft. wide. The extra 5 ft. of rotor width really increases the capacity. Another advantage is that the Deere header's table auger is larger in diameter than the Shelbourne table auger. My Deere 9600 combine had no trouble handling the extra grain. I was able to go about 6 mph in good rice. "The 10-in. dia. reel pipe does the same job as the 18-in. draper belt that was on my Shelbourne Reynolds header. It also takes up less space which allowed me to move the rotor 6 1/2 in. closer to the combine. With the Shelbourne Reynolds header I was having problems with the combine's rear wheels spinning in mud, and with backing up, be-cause the weight of the rotor made the combine front-heavy. Now my combine is better balanced so I don't have those problems. Another problem with the draper belt is that mice ate holes through it during winter storage and it cost $1,300 to replace the belt. The company's newer rice models are equipped with shaker pans instead of draper belts, but the pans have too many moving parts. Also, wet rice tends to stick to the pans. The header reel pipe keeps rice moving into the table auger so that it doesn't stick in wet conditions. "The Shelbourne Reynolds stripper rotor was supported by a single center bearing mounted on a cantilever beam. Every time I crossed over a levee it jolted the bearing, which eventually caused the center support to sag down and ultimately the bearing would fail because of mis-alignment. The 5-ft. center section on my rotor is supported at the bottom by two bearings instead of one, and at the top by a brace that I made from 3/8 by 2 1/2 in. strap steel. The brace connects the rotor housing to the back top plate on the Deere header and has eliminated bearing failures. Each end of the brace is secured by two bolts that fit into brackets welded onto the rotor housing and header. If I want to work on the rotor or table auger I just remove the bolts." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Norman Madden, 2233 Jackson 30, Newport, Ark. 72112 (ph 870 523-6012 or 697-3518).

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